Worse than Vogon poetry: bogus DMCA takedowns stun sci-fi lovers

The SFWA, which represents science fiction and fantasy authors, has demanded …

Viacom isn't the only organization involved in sending out "bass-ackwards" DMCA takedown notices; the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (abbreviated, for complicated reasons, as the SFWA) is in on the fun as well. The group has issued DMCA takedown notices for sci-fi reading lists drawn up to aid teen literacy, freely-distributed webzines, and Creative Commons-licensed material.

The debacle began a few weeks back when the SFWA contacted Scribd, a site that allows users to post documents in the same way that YouTube allows people to post videos. SFWA alleged that numerous works on Scribd violated copyrights of SFWA members and requested that these works be taken down. They were. But it quickly became apparent that the USS 1701-SFWA had a crack in its dilithium crystals.

Stories began to emerge from the blogosphere, and not the sort of Stranger in a Strange Land stuff that the SFWA exists to promote. Nick Senger, an eighth-grade teacher and promoter of teen literacy, found his sci-fi bibliography targeted in the crackdown. "I'm not sure what the SFWA has to gain by requesting that the list be removed," he notes. "That list does nothing but encourage people to buy their books."

The editors of a magazine called Ray Gun Revival also learned that their work had been yanked after a DMCA complaint from the SFWA. The only problem was they had purposely released the magazine for free distribution on Scribd.

The editors had harsh words for the SFWA. "Whether this is a misunderstanding or not isn't the issue," one wrote on the group's blog. "What is apparent is that the SFWA are policing Scribd, filing takedown notices on behalf of organizations they have nothing to do with. In our case, they’re not only not protecting our magazine, they are harming our ability to gain the most exposure for our contributors through cool services such as Scribd." (In the comments to this blog entry, SFWA president Michael Capobianco apologized for the situation.)

And blogger/author/professional-loather-of-DRM Cory Doctorow notes that his own Creative Commons-licensed novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom had been pulled at the SFWA's request. Doctorow points out 1) that the book is specifically allowed to be redistributed free of charge and 2) that he has told the SFWA not to handle rights issues pertaining to his work.

The SFWA's actions are already causing a small backlash against Doctorow. "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom was the first novel released under a Creative Commons license, and I've spent the past four years exhorting fans to copy my work and share it," Doctorow writes. "Now I've started to hear from readers who've seen this notice and concluded that I am a hypocrite who uses SFWA to send out legal threats to people who heeded my exhortation."

Because DMCA takedown notices require a sworn statement from the sender that the works in question are actually infringing (and that the sender has the right to handle copyright issues related to those works), the SFWA could actually find itself in the legal equivalent of a Vogon airlock over the notices.

What appears to have happened is that the group ran a Scribd search for certain author names and then issued takedown notices for all the results—Doctorow's book makes a reference to Isaac Asimov, for instance, and Senger's reading list is populated with the names of great sci-fi authors. This, it hardly needs to be said, is a less than foolproof way to police copyrights.

Perhaps it's time for the SFWA's legal team to guide the ship to a starbase for some needed repairs.